Fukuoka! ^^

Let’s just laugh at my previous two blog posts, knowing I failed to continue writing, ignore them and focus on what I am currently doing. Which is: being in Fukuoka, Japan (eating Pocky! ^^)

Well, I’m not just here for the Pocky of course. I will stay until late mid-June to improve my Japanese language skills and get to know Japan (or at least Fukuoka/Kyushu)! April 1^st  my mom and Gerard drove me to Schiphol Airport, where we met up with my friends Melisa, Nadia en Sylvia and their families, also discovering another friend, Angela, being on the same flight as us. After a little bit of talking, checking in our suitcases and saying goodbye, we actually went on the plane and made the long flight to Hong Kong International Airport.

The flight itself, which was a Cathay Airlines flight, was pretty okay. It was long – obviously – but it had a screen with films, series and music I actually liked and knew (which is truly a miracle), so it was not such a problem to kill some time. However, long is long and this flight was still seriously long. We were served meals two times, I think. At least I know they tasted good. Very good. Not expected that. However… the weather became a serious mess around the time we landed at Hong Kong Airport. And with a serious mess, I mean it was kind of like a storm. Thankfully, we landed safely. However, we had to wait for about half an hour to leave the plane, because the storm was too heavy and they thought it was not safe enough to leave.

At Hong Kong Airport, we had to wait for eight hours. We saw the weather becoming better, then become worse, then becoming better again, and we had no idea what to expect for our next flight. We saw some flights were cancelled around the time we arrived, some having delays and lots of gate changes, which wasn’t really comforting, of course, but everything was fine after a few hours (except it was way less than an hour to go, until we could see what our gate number was, so we had to hurry to the right gate, even though we had those long eight hours!).

At Hong Kong we also had an in-between landing at Taipei, so after departing, just an hour or so later, the plane landed again. Yay. I was in Taiwan! Anyways, not much happened there, exept we already had a one hour delay on our flight, due to many planes that wanted to depart and we had to wait for. Awesome, huh?!  

Anyways, after departing for the third time, our final destination, Fukuoka Airport, was finally getting really close. After a much more enjoyable landing, around ten at night (local time), we had to find our luggage and get a taxi to the place we are staying for these months. Lovely thing to note: the taxi drivers did not know where it was. Yay. Awesome. Because a bad weather landing, eight hours of waiting and a one hour delay weren’t bad enough yet. Thank you. Well, they worked together, the two man driving us, and in the end they were able to safely deliver us there. Then we got a short introduction of the building and our room keys! I got room 306, which was luckily very close to Nadia, who stays at room 301. The other girls were put on different floors, but as there are thirty-eight of us in total, you can say you can pretty much find someone you know on every floor.

After emptying my 22,8 kilos suitcase (which is obviously a little bit too heavy) and putting everything in place, I could sleep for a few hours. In a bed. With a TERRIBLE pillow. Other than that, the room is fine. Tiny (as in EVERYTHING is tiny and low. My height = OK. But you cannot be much taller, or you won’t fit under the shower or will not be able to see yourself in the mirror, et cetera) but fine.

Took a nice shower in the morning, then the group had together and we went to the school we will have classes from next week on. After this introduction, I went with my friends Brenda and Richt to a 100 yen shop, where I bought way too much! But also useful stuff, like eating utensils, a cup and more like that. As everything is just 100 yen (which is somewhere under 1 euro), it is very easy to say ‘YES!’ to something. After that, we went to a supermarket to buy some food and drinks. We dropped the food in our rooms, and then went to a different part of Hakata, the area of Fukuoka where we are staying. We went to…  yes! The Pokémon Center! Even though we had a hard time finding it (it actually was to be found in the department store IN the station. We were looking around it. We fail. But who cares. We found a bunch of cute stuff, even though there was mainly a lot from Pokémon X&Y (which honestly has lots of awesome Pokémon, so I really do love XY).

After that, we went to eat, before we went to a manga and anime shop in a different department store. I had curry rice, which was a tad spicy, but tasted really good! It was under 400 yen, so at least food did not take all our money. No. The next store did (okay, that’s a lie. I spend more at the Pokémon Center. And I still have a good amount of money. xD)…

The manga and anime shop had lots of manga – no shit Sherlock – but also quite some merchandise, even though I did not recognize anything. I felt like a bad Japanese language student XD! So I found myself a few manga to read. But at least it is good for my Japanese skills to read those.

Then we went back to Ijiri station and then to the common room, where we talked a bit with some of our classmates. Then we split up and went to our own rooms. Tomorrow we will have an entrance ceremony at the school, whatever that exactly might be. After that, I believe we will get a sort of introduction tour-something in Hakata. Well, we will see!

おやすみ！